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By Calvin Watkins Mar 26, 2019
PHOENIX — Jason Garrett found his voice during the two days of meetings at the Arizona Biltmore.
Yes, the same Jason Garrett whose news conferences start with him asking reporters, “How ya doing, guys?” The daily news conferences turn into daily bores whether it’s in Oxnard, Calif., or in Frisco, Texas. The Dallas Cowboys coach preaches doing your best “each and every day.” He says injured players are “day to day.” Garrett is a routine guy, wearing the same blue sweatshirt and Cowboys hat for every news conference.
But Tuesday at the NFL owners meetings, Garrett dismissed the cliches and went for the truth. It was Garrett who turned the tide on instant replay.
Every NFL coach spoke on a complex issue regarding how the replay system should change.
When it was Garrett’s turn to speak, he talked about the integrity of the game and how it was important to secure it. He didn’t want fans to talk about blown calls because it diminished what the teams did on the field. Garrett spoke as a man who lived every moment thinking of his dad, Jim Garrett, who died last year. Jim Garrett was a long-time Cowboys scout and former college football coach. It was Jim Garrett who taught his son about integrity and how doing things the right way was not only important to stress at home but on the football field, too.
Garrett said something needed to change with the replay system. He was tired of hearing about a missed pass interference call in the NFC title game last season. He said everybody should be talking about what a great game it was between the Rams and Saints, instead of a missed pass interference penalty. The NFL has parameters in place to minimize blown calls. Garrett, along with other coaches, suggested using the replay official more often to help the on-field officials.
When Garrett finished his speech, Sean Payton knew change was coming.
“He was outstanding,” said Payton, the Saints coach, victimized last year by a no-call on a blatant pass interference penalty against the Rams. “He finished and I said, ‘Dilly, dilly.’”
The NFL changed the replay rules, or rather tweaked them, to allow pass interference, both offensive and defensive, to be reviewable, the first penalties and judgment calls added to an approved list of reviews. Coaches will now challenge non-calls for pass interference. If something was missed, Garrett wanted the replay official to buzz the on-field officials, notifying them of a mistake.
“He was just on point,” Payton said of Garrett. “He did a great job speaking, and his father was a fantastic former coach and scout. He did a good job, and I would say ownership did a great job.”
Garrett received the praise from the man whose team was grossly affected by this non-call in the NFC title game last season. Garrett used his father’s teachings about how the game should be played, and it resonated with the room.
But in an interesting twist to everything, Garrett declined to speak on the record about what was said in the meeting. He understood reporters seeking input from his speech but declined comment. And the man whom Garrett works for, team owner and general manager Jerry Jones, wouldn’t give him total credit either.
“Jason is very articulate, but every coach talked, that’s all I’m saying,” Jerry Jones said. “He wasn’t the only one, every person in there talked. He was very good. It was unanimous, all the coaches were for this and articulated this in the same way.”
After Garrett spoke, there was a quiet applause from the coaches and league executives in the meeting. Garrett didn’t say anything different from other coaches, but it was the conviction from which he spoke that got a rise from people.
“I think it’s hard to argue with anything he said,” Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said. “Jason has done a great job of being able to verbalize what a lot of people feel. I think he certainly did a great job. At the end of the day, he summed up what a lot of coaches feel and what a lot of our membership feels. I think it was well done on his part.”
Stephen Jones has a vested interest in Garrett and the rules as a member of the competition committee.
Stephen Jones speaks to Garrett almost daily during the season and offseason about issues related to the Cowboys. He knows how principled Garrett is about everything whether it’s about the attire for a road game, why he’s the first man out the tunnel to start a game, why rewarding practice players with awards during the regular season is important. Everything has a purpose. Everything has a reason.
Garrett’s reasons for changing things was pretty simple: The integrity of the game was getting lost.
“One of the great things about our replay system and why I think it’s, for the most part, withstood the test of time is it really, I think at the end of the day, restricts over-use, if you will, or lots of game stoppage,” Stephen Jones said. “There’s a limitation as to how many challenges you can have. So I think there’s probably some real strong feelings that you have to operate from within that system. Hopefully, we were able to address some of the needs of what the coaches had come up with and keep them within our replay system.”
The NFL made change, not only listening to the paying customers but to their coaches as well, with Jason Garrett among the people leading the way.
